I used to be adamantly holding on to my set bonus, but after doing hard modes for a while and having my blade barriers disappear in one hit, I'm transitioning to full augmented orange as well. Blade barrier already sucks. Sucks + 20% = still sucks. I basically treat it the same way I treat exit strategy on my infiltration shadow: It's a nice little bonus when it procs, but it's not useful enough to where you'd want to actually put effort into maximizing it.

I generally am not a fan of the robed look, and prefer the pauldron/cape armors. I have the xenothech one that's brown and gold, which is okay, but I really want one with a little more color, like blue color. Anyone know any like that? I seem to recall the armor featured in the jedi knight character progression video was silver and blue. But really, I'd just be happy with "not brown." I don't like the white and orange one from corellia (it looks plastic to me).

Hmmm, I like how it makes your force sweeps insanely powerful, but I'm not sure about how well it can keep hate on a single target compared to a defense tree build. Even against multiple targets, force sweep doesn't have a very big aoe so I'm not sure how useul it would be from a tanking perspective. How would you play this class? I'm not trying to criticize, just see what the main idea is. Also, since force sweep looks like the main talent with this build, I'm surprised you didn't fit courage in there somehow. Seems like it'd be a little focus draining without it.

I can't imagine much has changed from the standard one, but I may have sort of... forgotten where I put all my points before... So do we have a generally agreed upon build for defense tanks yet? I don't imagine it would take very long.

Just pointing out that blaster bolts are most certainly blue in the prequels and TV show, used by the clone troopers. And that's G canon.

Great read. Could use some cleaning up though, with some colored text and quick links. Still, very nice!

It is strange, isn't it? Anyway, what I'm getting from this after all the discussion is that hybrid is great all the way 50 and beyond... until you get geared enough to survive without reliance on super-defensive abilities, then defense is more useful. That's good to know.

Man, this thread has some amazing maths and theories floating around in it in support of both builds... That's great, but it still doesn't make it very clear which build works better. I guess at the moment I'll just stick with Hybrid since it's what I know. But please, keep the discussion up, it's very informative and helpful.

I'm just trying to figure out which one people who've experienced both think is better. The vig/def guide has a lot of compelling arguments against straight defense, but I've also read a few guides that make straight defense sound like the best way. I haven't hit 50 yet (38) but I've been doing the hybrid build so far and enjoying it. I'm not asking you to tell me what to do, just trying to see where we stand on this.

Or go biochem and make reusable medpacs that also heal for more. Biochem makes surviving a tough fight SOOOOOO much easier for me.

I think you're thinking of planet commendations. He's talking about Daily Commendations, which I only have gotten 2 of but never saw any place to spend them as well. So yea, free bump for you, TC.

My guy has a cape. Awwwwww yea.

Most of the major complaining I've seen has been from Guardians who are leveling in the 10-35 range, while the most legitimate complaint I've seen is just that Guardians don't get most of their best abilities until far later than they should. So my understanding of it is that Guardian is a bit of a trudge early on but gets pretty solid performance at 50.

Honestly I've noticed my friend's sawbones smuggler out-damaging me (level 20 now). I mean yea, I'm a tank spec so dmg isn't priority, but to be honest I actually feel kind of at home like this. Back when I was playing FFXI (I quit a while before the level cap was raised past 75), I played a monk. I loved it. But I also had to deal with the fact that monks were kind of bad at... well, everything for most of the early levels. Then when you got to the high levels and got all your gear and weapon skills, Monks DESTROYED most other jobs in terms of raw damage. So much so that at 74/75, warrior subjobs were forbidden to monks because no tank could keep a mob from focusing on a 75 mnk/war. That was bittersweet for me, because leveling ninja SUCKED. Anyway, hopefully by the time I hit endgame Bioware will be working on Knights to beef them up a bit where need be. Either way, I'm still enjoying my guardian, even if I'm a little suckish right now. Oh, I also pulled aggro from the Belsaavis world boss today on my 50 shadow. The tank was a guardian, and I was the only one who yanked the boss' attention away from the tank. I died, but tbh I was actually pleasantly surprised I managed to do it. Whether this speaks to Infiltraion Shadow's dps ability or Guardian's tanking ability, I don't know. But My shadow doesn't pvp much and thus doesn't have a lot of uber-endgame gear. Not bad gear, just not uber.

Well, since the guide itself is gone and there are a lot of people offering different interpretations, can someone point out the best build for a tank? I can learn the mechanics fine enough, but most guardians I know in my guild (quite a few, surprisingly) focus mostly on Defense. If this hybrid idea is truly the better way to tank, I'd like to figure out what exactly it is so they'll be inclined to follow my example and improve themselves, if they so choose. I don't want this idea to die if it works, and I want to be the best around, with nothing ever gonna be keeping me down! Er, I just want to maximize my tanking ability. Thanks!

I've seen several of these issues myself, except for the blackout one. I can't really offer a solution, and these issues don't frustrate me as much as maybe you or some other people because I'm pretty casual with how I play, at least in PvE. Just letting you know you aren't the only one, and I too hope these issues will be fixed in the near future.

Psh, upheaval (if you specc'd that way) is amazingly awesome looking. I don't really know why, but telepathically lifting and hurling 1 big rock = ehhhh, but TWO big rocks = RAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH FEAR MY POWAH, MORTAL FOOLS!!! Maybe that's just me. I love upheaval.

Infiltration shadows can do fantastic damage, as that is what they are supposed to do. Surviving under pressure is NOT what we're supposed to do. If you find a fight too tough to solo, try these options: -Use medpacs. -Use Tharan (do this all the time anyways) -Use Unity/Channel the Force. The cool-downs aren't as long as they seem to be. -GET HELP. Even one buddy tagging along can provide a massive boost to your survivability, even if he isn't a tank. Not to mention you get more exp and better loot this way. -If you still can't make it through the fight, FORCE CLOAK AND RUN AWAY. Shadows are good at sneaking out and away from trouble. You aren't Crog the Barabarian, destroyer of worlds. You can't and should never be expected to face every opponent head on. If you expect this out of yourself, you aren't thinking like a shadow. Hope those tips help. I'm at 50 Infiltration myself and I'm loving it.

Whenever I have Nadia out, battles become something amazing to watch. With the upheaval spec, there's chunks of debris, force-splosions, and dead or bewildered enemies flying everywhere. I didn't believe infiltration was one of the flashiest dps trees when i heard it (it certainly isn't at lower levels) but I LOVE getting into fights now.

The fact that HK-51 is still on the companion list leads me to believe that this guide is somewhat outdated. HK-51 isn't available in the game, this has been proven by many data diggers. Anyway, it's still a great guide, and I've personally followed the infiltration part of it pretty closely all the way to 50 (which I just got today ), but a few updates are probably necessary by now.

Mind maze helps a LOT to separate the strongest mobs from the rest. Against droids you're screwed but eh. Also don't be afraid to mind maze, go in, kill as many as you can, cloak out, recuperate, mind maze, and go in again. Segregating your enemies is really the best way to deal with larger groups. That or find a friend to help you. And use Theran, at least in the tough fights. He's a lifesaver.

What's funny is that these same people inhabit this forum too, so all you'll get is more jerks. I haven't met many Empire folks outside of Warzones myself, in fact the only one I did meet was on Alderaan, and when I tried to say hi he just looked at me and ran the other way. So my experience with the Empire side of things is limited so far. Were you on a PvP server?

I actually solved that puzzle in about 30 minutes of hard thought, accounting for my friend trying to solve it at the same time which just ended up hindering both of us immensely. So it wasn't a terribly hard puzzle. UNFORTUNATELY, neither of us paid attention when the ship went down, and we had no idea where to look for it. After about 15 minutes of searching we just gave up on it. We tried redoing the puzzle but nothing happened. Kind of pathetic, I know, but jeez. At least I read that the reward isn't much.

I know, but I'm infiltration. That's what I'm wondering about: How useful is it for infiltration as an opening move from stealth (against enemies that can actually be knocked down).

I'm about to hit 42 (infiltration) and noticed I get spinning kick at that level, and the description sounds like it's a useful opener for coming out of stealth, at least against non-bosses. But since I haven't actually gotten the ability yet, I'm curious about the utility of it, especially since it isn't mentioned in the stickied guide. So does that mean it's useless in PvE or just situational or just forgotten?